The human over population is near

The human overpopulation is near

Earths maximum capacity

Overpopulation remains the leading driver of hunger, desertification and species depletion across the planet. Conservative estimates report that China’s most recent food crisis, between 1958 and 1961, led to the starvation of over twenty million people, in part due to the erosion of China’s natural capital. Uncontrolled human fertility led to a depletion of the land’s fertility. Previous famines were worse. Over the years, hundreds of millions died a horrible death of hunger. Their misery should teach a sobering lesson about insouciant disregard for the balance between human numbers and natural resources.

It gives little satisfaction for sustainable population advocates to point out that the past twenty years saw an estimated 200 million hunger-related deaths worldwide. Relatively few occurred in countries where population was stable. The U.N. reports that today one in eight people in the world suffer’s chronic undernourishment. Almost without exception, they live in developing regions, where most of the planet’s population growth continues. If family planning had been energetically promoted years ago, enormous suffering could have been avoided.

Cities, mostly in developing countries, will expand from 3 to 6 percent of all-ice free land. It also means that 10 to 15 percent of lands farmed today would be taken out of production. In a perfect world we would have better ways of distributing surplus food to famine stricken regions or promoting land reform to optimize food production. But for the foreseeable future we will be living in a very imperfect world where communities need to take care of themselves and maintain sustainable populations.

Facts:

• 1/3 of the population growth in the world is the result of incidental or unwanted pregnancies.
• If fertility remained at current levels, the population would reach the absurd figure of 296 billion in just 150 years. Even if it dropped to 2.5 children per woman and then stopped falling, the population would still reach 28 billion.

Population (in billions)                                 1              2              3              4              5              6              7              8

Year                       1804       1927       1959       1974       1987       1999       2011       2023

Elapsed                                –              123         33           14           13           12           13           15+

• At least 150 million couples throughout the world want, but do not have, access to reproductive Health Services.
• For An Additional $1.63 Per U.S. Taxpayer Per Year, 11.7 Million More Couples Would Have Access to Modern Contraception.
• By 2030, the world’s urban population is expected to reach 4.9 billion, while the rural population is expected to decrease by 28 million.
• 1983 Year that world grain production per person began to decline.
• 1985 Year that humanity’s demand for resources first exceeded supply.
• 1989 Year that world fish catch per person began to decline.
• 1999 Year that the world population reached 6 billion.
• 2012 Year that the world population will reach 7 billion.
• 2050 Year that the world population will reach 9.2 billion.
• 3 Days for the world population to increase by that of San Francisco.
• 6 Months for the world population to increase by that of California.
• 200,000 World population growth each day
• 70 Years for population to double, in any country, at a 1% growth rate per year 2009.
• The richest 20 percent of humanity consumes 86 percent of all goods and services, while the poorest fifth consumes just 1.3 percent.
• Only 17% of the world’s population lives in industrialized countries.
• The average life expectancy is 61, up from 40 in just 50 years. The numbers of people 65 and older make up 10-15% of the world population today and is expected to increase to 20-30% by 2050.
• The use of contraception among couples in developing countries has increased from 10% in the early 1960′s to 60% today.
• During this period, the fertility rate fell from about six births per woman in the mid-1960′s to below three per woman in 2000.
• Global population growth has slowed to an annual rate of 1.35%, the lowest in decades.
• Uncountable numbers of women and children have lived instead of died.
• The U.S. Census Bureau reported that hunger is a daily concern for 13.8% of Americans
• There will be 125 million births in the world this year. By the time this group is ready to start school, there will have been another 625 million births.
• Every 20 minutes, the human population grows by about 3,000. At the same time another plant or animal becomes extinct (27,000 each year).
• According to the U.N., if fertility were to stay constant at 1995-2000 levels, the world population would soar to 244 billion by 2150 and 134 trillion by 2300.
• The population of the U.S. tripled during the 20th century, but the U.S. consumption of raw materials increased 17-fold.

Earth’s capacity

Many scientists think Earth has a maximum carrying capacity of 9 billion to 10 billion people.

Aside from the limited availability of freshwater, there are indeed constraints on the amount of food that Earth can produce. Even in the case of maximum efficiency, in which all the grains grown are dedicated to feeding humans (instead of livestock, which is an inefficient way to convert plant energy into food energy), there’s still a limit to how far the available quantities can stretch. If everyone agreed to become vegetarian, leaving little or nothing for livestock, the present 1.4 billion hectares of arable land (3.5 billion acres) would support about 10 billion people.

The 3.5 billion acres would produce approximately 2 billion tons of grains annually, he explained. That’s enough to feed 10 billion vegetarians, but would only feed 2.5 billion U.S. omnivores, because so much vegetation is dedicated to livestock and poultry in the United States.

So 10 billion people is the uppermost population limit where food is concerned. Because it’s extremely unlikely that everyone will agree to stop eating meat, Wilson thinks the maximum carrying capacity of the Earth based on food resources will most likely fall short of 10 billion

Other environmental factors that limit the Earth’s carrying capacity are the nitrogen cycle, available quantities of phosphorus, and atmospheric carbon concentrations, but there is a great amount of uncertainty in the impact of all of these factors.

Slowing growth

Fortunately, we may be spared from entering the phase of overpopulation and starvation. According to the United Nations Population Division, the human population will hit 7 billion on or around Oct. 31, and, if its projections are correct, we’re en route to a population of 9 billion by 2050, and 10 billion by 2100. However, somewhere on the road between those milestones, scientists think we’ll make a U-turn.

Globally, the fertility rate is falling to the replacement level— 2.1 children per woman, the rate at which children replace their parents (and make up for those who die young). If the global fertility rate does indeed reach replacement level by the end of the century, then the human population will stabilize between 9 billion and 10 billion. As far as Earth’s capacity is concerned, we’ll have gone about as far as we can go, but no farther.

(Before It’s News)